A Brief Encounter
by EvanescingSky
Summary: In the early 1900s, French model Marianne is marooned in a tiny English village when her train breaks down on the way to a show in Glasgow. Local resident Alice is much too interested in this development for her own good.


Dialogue in italics indicates where the characters are speaking French, outside the opening scene where everyone is speaking French.

Dyllis - Wales

Iona - Scotland

Emma - Belgium

Angelique - Seychelles

Pierre - Pierre the bird

* * *

Scotland was an obscure place to have a show to begin with, but in Marianne's profession, the girls didn't have much of a choice in where they went or what they wore. That was how they found themselves with their many suitcases and dress bags piled onto a ship first, crossing over to Britain, where they had shows in London, Liverpool and Birmingham before boarding a train north to Glasgow.

The rolling green hills were pretty at first, but Marianne bored of them quickly, as she bored of her card games with Angelique, a Seychellois she was sharing a compartment with.

"I can't believe they're making us come all the way out here," Marianne griped, looking out the window, her finely shaped chin resting on her hand.

"It does seem awfully out of the way," Angelique agreed. When she too, turned to look out the window, the sun light up her light brown eyes, making them appear almost amber in color.

"I can't imagine how they think they're going to fill the show," she sighed, leaning back against the seat.

"Maybe they'll have us modeling Wellington boots," interjected Emma as she let herself into their compartment and took a seat next to Marianne.

"God help us," Marianne mourned. "Our legs weren't meant to be in Wellingtons!"

"What are you playing?" Emma's attention turned to the abandoned cards sitting on the seats.

"It was rummy," Angelique said, with Marianne too lost in despair about their current trajectory.

"Did you win?" Emma asked over the distant sound of the train whistle blowing, muffled by the many cars between them and the engine car.

"Not really. We got bored. This was round four," explained Angelique, piling the cards back into one stack.

"Margot fell asleep in my car," Emma said, squinting out the compartment window to the hall.

"That's good for you," Marianne warned her. "She'd bleed you dry if you played cards with her."

"Marianne speaks from personal experience," Angelique added helpfully. Marianne cast a displeased look at Angelique, but couldn't refute that truth. It still stung. Emma snickered.

"That's what you get for being cocky, Marianne," she warned playfully. Marianne muttered something under her breath and went back to watching the grassy slopes pass by outside.

"She's a card genius, I hadn't anticipated that," she balked after a moment.

"She is," Angelique agreed, nodding. "I've seen her. She gets men to bet money against the chance to take her to dinner and then she wrings them dry."

"I do seem to recall her coming back to the hotel with a much heavier purse than when she left," Emma remarked.

"It's like—" Marianne didn't get to finish their sentence, because suddenly the train gave a violent jolt and there was a great clanging and sputtering from beneath their feet. All three of the women looked down and then slowly back up at each other.

"…I don't suppose that's supposed to happen, is it?" Angelique asked, torn between anxiety and foolish hope.

"I don't imagine so," Emma said.

"The train's stopped," Marianne observed, looking out the window again.

"Oh dear."

They waited in apprehension for about twenty minutes before their coordinator and boss, M. Leblanc, appeared with a grim face.

"What's the news?" Emma asked as he opened their compartment door.

"Engine trouble," he said gravely. He was a very serious fellow who was constantly trying to keep his models behaving well and under control, a task quite a bit like trying to catch falling ice cubes. The girls were fond of him nonetheless, even when they were ignoring his directives. "The conductor is seeing what he can do, but it looks like we'll need repairs. He's going to see if we have enough power to make it to the nearest town; hopefully we'll be able to fix it there."

"And if not?" Marianne inquired.

"Then we might have to cancel the Glasgow show," he replied, rubbing his face with one hand and tugging at his mustache. "Turn around and head back to France. We'll see. I want your fingers crossed for repairs." The three models crossed their fingers and held their hands up for him to see. He departed to go tell the others in the group (only a few of them had come; this show was smaller than most of theirs, owing to the long distance they had to travel to get there), leaving Marianne, Emma and Angelique to ponder their situation.

It was another twenty minutes before Angelique cried, "We're moving!" And indeed they were. Slowly, with a clamor down below that sounded like the train might burst into flames at any moment, but they were moving. Emma got up and hurried back to her compartment further up the train, where Margot had been woken by the noise. She looked out the window and called back after a few minutes of tenuous movement, "There's a town coming up!"

They managed to pull into the station, but the train went utterly kaput after that. The models' coordinator was back in a harried rush to tell them they'd be stuck here until the train could be fixed; with the best luck, they'd be on their way before nightfall.

The town was a tiny little thing; the train didn't even usually pass through here, they'd had to change onto a rarely used set of rails to stop here. Passenger trains certainly didn't stop here. While it was a rather dreary affair for the passengers on the train, the young models included, for the people of the village, it was an exciting, unusual event. Anything new and different that passed through the country town was exciting because it was so rare.

It didn't take long for the news to spread about the stuck train, but when the additional detail that there were French models marooned in the local train station, the village's interest grew twofold. Naturally, people came to gawk.

Alice wasn't one of those. She was on her way to pay a visit to a friend whom she owed a calling, and just happened to be passing by the train station, which was nothing more than a small stone platform with a roof erected over it in case of the frequent rains. Since she was already passing by, there was no harm in having a look, she reasoned. She approached the platform, straining her poor eyes to get a glimpse of the people inside. Several of the windows had been rolled down and out of a few, smoke billowed, indicating who was having a cigarette or cigar. As she passed by one of those, Alice caught sight of a delicate hand with carefully painted red nails hanging low as the owner blew a mouthful of smoke out the open window. Alice looked up the elegant arm to the face above and stopped in her tracks.

This had to be one of the models, she thought. She'd never seen a more beautiful person in all her life. The woman's profile looked like something out of a fantasy painting, her thick brunette hair bundled in a braided bun on the back of her head, beneath a stylish blue hat, whose stiff netting came down over part of the cream-colored face, cheeks sporting a healthy pink glow.

Another face appeared in the window, another stunningly beautiful woman with darker skin than anyone Alice had seen before. Her glossy black hair was pulled back in complex braids and unlike the other woman, she seemed more interested in looking around. She spotted Alice immediately.

" _Eh! Il y a quelqu'un qui te regard_ ," she said to the smoking woman. That was definitely not English. The smoker looked down and her eyes landed on Alice.

" _Qu'est-ce que vous voulez?_ " she asked, smoke rolling over her full lower lip, painted pastel pink with lipstick. Alice stared blankly, not understanding a word. Annoyed realization dawned on the face of the smoker and she snapped her fingers into the train. " _Pierre! Pierre, vien ici, il y a un femme anglais ici!_ "

A young man with curly chestnut-colored hair joined the two women in the train compartment. Marianne pointed to Alice, who bristled slightly at the gesture.

"They want to know what you want," the man called down in English so thickly accented it took Alice a moment to realize he wasn't speaking French as well.

"Want?" Alice echoed. "I don't want anything!"

" _She doesn't want anything_ ," Pierre said to Marianne.

" _Well then why is she standing down there staring at us?_ " Marianne asked.

"Then why are you standing down there staring?" Pierre asked Alice.

"I wasn't staring!" Alice blustered. "How rude of you to suggest such a thing!" Guilt pricked at her; she had been staring. But she couldn't help it! She'd never met a Frenchwoman before, let alone one so beautiful, or anyone with skin like the smoker's lovely companion.

" _She says you're being rude and she wasn't staring_ ," Pierre told Marianne.

" _Anyone would be rude being stuck in this place_ ," Marianne grumbled. " _And she was absolutely staring. Wasn't she, Angelique?_ "

" _She was_." Pierre glanced between them, wondering if he was supposed to translate any of that. When neither Angelique nor Marianne made any indication, he put his head back out the window to speak to Alice again.

"She says anyone would be rude if they were stuck—"

"Pierre!" Marianne gave him a light kick with the toe of her shoe. " _Don't say that_!"

"I told you she was being rude!" Alice waved a furious finger up at Pierre. She didn't need to hear the rest of the sentence to guess what the model had said in that twittery bird language of hers. Marianne sighed and rubbed her temples with one hand, tapping her cigarette against the window sill to shake the loose ashes onto the ground outside. "Stuck-up frog!"

" _She says you're a stuck up frog_ ," Pierre informed Marianne.

" _Oh, now she's getting all worked up. Tell her we're sorry, we haven't had our coffee this morning and so we're in poor moods_ ," Marianne said. Pierre relayed as much to Alice, who could have kicked herself for what she did next.

"I have coffee!" she blurted out, pausing with her mouth open once she'd finished speaking, marveling at her own stupidity and impulsiveness.

" _The miss says she has coffee_ ," Pierre told the models.

" _She has coffee? Where?"_ Marianne perked up at once.

"Where?" Pierre called down to Alice.

"Er…at my house," she responded, rubbing the back of her neck.

" _At her house, miss_." Marianne groaned. She dropped her cigarette butt into the ashtray and looked at Angelique.

" _How long do you think it will be until the train is fixed?_ " she asked.

" _M. Leblanc said by the earliest before tonight_ ," Angelique recalled. " _You aren't thinking of going somewhere, are you?_ " Marianne's eyes found the ceiling.

" _I don't imagine sitting here for hours is going to be very interesting_ ," she pointed out.

" _You'll get in trouble!_ " Angelique reminded here. " _Again!_ " Marianne glanced out at Alice and then up at Pierre, with whom she shared a secret: they both liked their same sex. Pierre exclusively, Marianne in addition to men. He didn't say anything, but his look told her to proceed at her own risk. He knew she wasn't pursuing a woman who'd been staring at her simply for the coffee.

" _Ask her how far away she lives,"_ she told him. The woman didn't live far, it seemed. Of course she didn't—"far" and she'd be out of the village.

"Wait here," Pierre told her as Marianne got up.

" _Marianne! What if the train is fixed and you're still gone? You'll be left here alone!_ " Angelique fretted.

" _I'm taking Pierre with me_ ," Marianne reassured her.

" _You are?_ " Pierre's attention snapped away from the window and over to Marianne.

" _We'll be fine_ ," Marianne said. " _I won't be gone more than an hour or two._ " Angelique sighed, recognizing defeat in trying to get Marianne to stay. " _No one will even notice we're gone_."

" _Alright, but if you get left behind, you only have yourself to blame_ ," Angelique warned her. Marianne shrugged carelessly as she sashayed out of the train compartment, Pierre behind her. They let themselves out of the compartment, which they technically weren't supposed to do, but honestly, how could anyone expect them all to just sit there until the train was fixed?

" _Hey! Englishwoman!_ " Marianne called out to the pigtailed woman in a faded blue dress, waiting outside their train window. Alice looked over, surprised to see the two French people approaching. Visiting Maude would definitely have to wait.

"Miss Marianne says she will accompany you to your house for coffee," Pierre told Alice. Oh. Okay. Alice swallowed. She may have gotten herself in over her head here. Pierre and Marianne looked like they weren't even the same species as Alice and the other village-dwellers.

"O-okay. This way then…" She started to lead them off, back in the direction she'd come. Angelique watched them go from the train window, wondering if she ought to have gone with just for the entertainment.

" _What's her name, Pierre?_ " Marianne asked Pierre.

"What's your name?" Pierre asked Alice.

"Alice," Alice replied.

"Alice," Pierre told Marianne.

"Alice?" Marianne asked. She pronounced it odd, elongating the I so that it sounded like 'Aleece'.

"Alice," Pierre confirmed.

"You sound like talking birds," Alice grumbled. She found she couldn't look at Marianne too long, for fear of staring, but she wanted to look, so it resulted in many quick glances over in the Frenchwoman's direction where she avoided looking directly at her as much as possible, as though that might keep Marianne from noticing that Alice was looking at her. Alice was hardly practiced in anything romantic or sexual, even recognizing her own feelings. The extend of her experience was a clumsy kiss with Roger Williams, after which she'd shoved him and told him never to do that again or she'd push him in the pig pen. She certainly hadn't felt like _this_ about that. "What's her name? Mary?"

"Marianne!" the Frenchwoman ejaculated emphatically, catching that hideous butchering of her name and guessing without Pierre's translation what Alice was saying. " _With an 'anne'_!"

"Marianne," Pierre said to Alice after a moment, in a more level voice

"Marianne? That sounds like an awful mouthful," Alice sniffed.

" _She can't even say the R right_ ," Marianne whined.

 _Why did I come here_? Pierre wondered. They fell silent until Marianne made another attempt at conversation.

" _Does she often invite strange people from the train over to her house? Or just beautiful women?"_ Pierre translated and Alice's cheeks went pink.

"There aren't often people stopping here!" she said defensively. "And I didn't invite her over, all I said was that I had coffee! She invited herself!"

" _She didn't stop me_ ," Marianne pointed out when Pierre had told her what Alice said. Alice's pink darkened to red after the translation and opened and closed her mouth silently trying to dispute Marianne's claim. Marianne smirked. " _Who looks like a frog now?"_

"Cheeky! Does she think just because she's pretty she can say whatever she wants?" Alice demanded. As soon as she said that, she made a hasty gesture at Pierre. "Don't translate that!"

" _What did she say?_ " Marianne asked intently when Pierre didn't immediately tell her what Alice had said.

" _She asked me not to say_ ," Pierre said.

" _Who cares? You work for me, come on Pierre!_ " Marianne grabbed his sleeve.

" _She asked me not to!_ " he said.

" _She won't know if you do!_ "

"You better not be translating that!" Alice warned him.

" _She says you're cheeky_ ," Pierre said at last, hoping that was a reasonable compromise. After a long pause, he decided he owed it to Marianne and added, " _And she thinks you're pretty."_

" _Of course she does, I am_ ," Marianne said, looking to the side to display her profile and swan-like neck. Alice gaped for a moment and then hastily looked away, returning her expression to her usual "mildly irritated" neutral look.

" _You're trouble is what you are_ ," Pierre said, giving her a pointed look. Marianne flashed him a grin.

" _Only as much as you, dear Pierre_ ," she said.

" _I'm not half as much trouble as you!_ " Pierre disagreed. Left out of the conversation as the pair argued in French, Alice's "mildly irritated" became "definitely irritated" and she squinted at them from the corners of her eyes.

" _Oh, look, she's sulking now_ ," Marianne interrupted the argument to look over at Alice.

"No, please, carry on with your argument," Alice said, holding up a hand and looking away from Marianne. Far be it from _her_ to interrupt.

" _She's cute when she's like that_ ," Marianne said. When silence reigned afterwards, she looked at Pierre and pointed to Alice. " _Tell her that_." Pierre gave her a long look.

" _You know, this really isn't what I signed up for_ ," he pointed out.

" _Come on Pierre, help a girl out_ ," Marianne insisted.

" _She's not even that pretty_ ," Pierre told her.

" _She's not your type_ ," Marianne brushed off his concern.

" _That doesn't make a difference!_ " Pierre argued. " _I can still tell pretty girls from plain ones. I do spend most of my time with models, if you recall._ " In truth, Alice was rather plain. There was nothing particularly special about her milky pale face, with the green eyes set a bit too far apart and the thin lips more often than not twisted into a scowl of some sort, and certainly her fearsome brow didn't help her. Her hair was straw blonde and wrung out into two limp pigtails. Her figure was short and slim, with not much bust or hips to speak of. And yet, Marianne was intrigued. The girl had a boldness about her that Marianne liked; she got the impression it was very hard to make Alice do something she didn't want to do—which was why she felt sure if Alice really hadn't wanted her over, she would have told her to scram.

" _I think she's cute, so tell her_!" Pierre, feeling that this outing could only end in trouble for Alice, if not for Marianne, relented and relayed the message, which doubly darkened the flushed color of Alice's face.

"She better not be making fun of me," Alice growled under her breath, too quietly for Pierre to clearly make out what she said. When he inquired, she told him to mind his own business. Marianne kept leaning past Pierre to have a look at Alice, whose eyes were determinedly fixed on the dirt, until yet another person passing by them slowed their step to stare, at which point Alice demanded quite loudly whether or not they could help him with something. Marianne snickered. "Why is everyone staring at us?" Alice asked Pierre. "That's the fifth one, I swear!"

"I don't think they're staring at _us_ , my dear," Pierre said a touch dryly, too polite to say "not at you". He glanced to his right and Alice followed his gaze to the elegant Frenchwoman, who appeared to not even notice the looks. Only those who knew her well—like Pierre—could see the slight upturn of the corners of her lips and the pleased look in her half-lidded eyes that suggested she was quite pleased with the attention.

Alice wondered if she had gotten herself in way over her head, and thought that perhaps the simple fact that she was having that thought meant she was.

Bringing her home was the peak of it all though. It took them about forty minutes to walk back from the train station, with the same confused, disjointed conversation they'd begun with. Home much earlier than a visit with Maude would have allowed, Alice led Marianne up the crooked dirt path to the front door and cautiously pushed it open, peering inside. She knew it was far too hopeful to think no one was home, but maybe they were all busy.

"You're home early, Alice," her mother remarked, passing by with a basket of laundry, because luck did not favor Alice.

"Er…well yes, I ended up not going…" she dawdled, keeping the door open only enough that she could poke her head in, so her mother couldn't see their two guests.

"But it's been so long since you went over there! What happened? You didn't walk all the way into town and just change your mind, did you?" Mrs. Kirkland asked, plucking the dishtowels from their hanging places and tossing them into the basket.

"No, it um…something came up," Alice said evasively.

" _Let us in_ ," Marianne complained behind her. " _The porch isn't that nice!_ "

"Did you bring someone home with you?" Mrs. Kirkland's brow—blessedly slimmer than her daughter's—furrowed as she turned her attention to the door, trying to make sense of what she'd just heard.

"Er…yes. You know the train that's stuck in the station? Well I rather…I mean, I…I invited some of them over for a cuppa," she confessed.

"Oh?" Her mother gave her a skeptical and understandably surprised look. Alice was hardly even social with people she knew (and liked!) let alone strangers.

" _She's breaking the news to her mother_ ," Pierre muttered to Marianne.

" _Is she in trouble?_ "

" _We'll see_."

Knowing she couldn't keep the pair on the porch forever, Alice reluctantly let the door swing open the rest of the way and there was something strangely gratifying about the way her mother's eyes bugged when she saw the two fashionable, attractive French people standing outside her front door. Marianne cast aside her mood and flashed a dazzling smile at Mrs. Kirkland.

" _Enchanted_ ," she said, giving the plump woman a nod.

"It's a pleasure," Pierre added. "I'm afraid Marianne doesn't speak English," he said, jerking his head in Marianne's direction.

"Oh. I see. Well. Alice. Put the kettle on." Mrs. Kirkland, somewhat flustered by their unexpected guests, gathered her laundry and went on with her business. Alice's youngest older sister emerged from her bedroom into the hall.

"Alice brought guests?" She came out to have a look and when she saw them, her dark brown eyes went wide and she promptly turned on her heel and hurried off to find Iona and tell her.

"Don't mind her, that's my sister," Alice muttered, waving a hand. She led them into the kitchen and Marianne seemed somewhat fascinated with the place, looking around and examining their jars and kitchen decorations as if she'd never seen anything like them before.

Alice's sister returned with a much taller, redheaded young woman, who was more openly intrigued by their guests.

"Alice, where'd you get them?" she asked.

"The train," Alice said primly, putting a kettle of water on the stove.

"Is she one of those French models?" Iona asked. Alice gave a very tiny smirk to the inside of the cupboard as she fished out their Earl Grey tea.

"Yes, she is. Her name is Marianne and she's from…" Halfway into her bragging answer, she realized she didn't actually know and she looked back at Pierre for help.

"Chamonix," Pierre supplied.

"Chamonix," Alice relayed unnecessarily to Iona. Dyllis lingered in the kitchen doorway, tugging at a loose lock of curly brown hair. The rest had been wrangled into a bun with great effort on her part and some help from her mother. She was twenty, a year older than Alice, and her mother had been inviting a certain neighbor over more and more frequently, nudging him towards Dyllis.

"Pity Seamus isn't here," Iona remarked, looking at Marianne, who was leaning back against the counter, her lazy blue gaze moving between the three women. Pierre knew that look—it wasn't nearly as disengaged as it seemed. Marianne was watching.

"Thank God Seamus isn't here," Alice corrected. Their oldest brother Seamus had married and moved out four years ago, to a childhood sweetheart of his, but Alice knew if he were here that wouldn't stop him from going moon-eyed over the beautiful Frenchwoman. Iona herself was engaged to the butcher's son, soon to be married in the spring. Her interest seemed more in how her two younger sisters were reacting to their guests, though.

Dyllis was looking at Pierre out of the corner of her eyes; Marianne saw and cast a very subtle amused look over at Pierre.

" _Poor dear_ ," she remarked.

" _That's life_ ," Pierre said with a shrug. They both giggled and even _that_ sounded French.

"Would you both get out?" Alice grabbed a spoon and brandished it at her older sisters. "The kitchen is too small for this many people!" With a fair amount of bickering and spoon-waving, Alice managed to herd Iona and Dyllis out of the kitchen so she could break some news to Pierre. "We don't actually have any coffee," she said bluntly. Pierre just stared at her.

"You don't have coffee?" he repeated, glancing over at Marianne, who was looking out the kitchen window into the yard outside. "You said you did," he hissed quietly.

"I—I know what I said!" Alice's cheeks flushed but she crossed her arms defiantly. "It…it just slipped out, but it's not the end of the world! I have tea." Pierre covered his eyes with one hand and dragged it down his face.

"Tea? Oh, my God." Pierre groaned. "Why do I have to be the one to tell her?" He wanted to tell Alice to tell her, but of course she couldn't.

"Because you're the one who speaks French!" Alice busied herself with the kettle to give herself an excuse to turn away from the other two while Pierre broke the news to Marianne.

" _No coffee?"_ Marianne exclaimed. " _That's the whole reason we came here! Are you saying she lied to us?_ "

" _I'm saying she blurted out what you wanted to hear and then avoided telling the truth as long as she could_ ," Pierre replied. Marianne gave a long-suffering sigh and massaged her temples.

" _Is she making tea?_ "

" _Yes. Should I tell her not to bother?_ " Marianne shook her head.

" _She's already started now. You can ask her if she was trying to lure me here for sinful purposes when she said that though_ ," Marianne said.

" _I'm not asking her that_."

" _And after you ask her that you can tell her I can make a girl come in under two minutes_ ," Marianne went on as if Pierre hadn't spoken.

" _I'm_ _definitely_ _not telling her that_." Marianne laughed and Alice relaxed somewhat. If the Frenchwoman was laughing, she couldn't be too upset about the coffee, right?

Although tea was hardly Marianne's favorite beverage, she drank it—after upending a good deal of Alice's milk and sugar into the cup as well. Conversation was difficult and poor Pierre's head was jerking back and forth as though he were watching a very intense tennis match as he translated this or that for one woman or the other. Alice noticed Dyllis lingering repeatedly around the kitchen, but when she glared at her trying to send her away, Dyllis made a face at her and marched off.

It was early afternoon when they'd finished Alice's pot of tea and Pierre was looking tired, so (through him), Marianne proposed Alice give her a tour of the place without Pierre.

"She thinks you'll manage well enough," Pierre told Alice. The Englishwoman was reluctant, but she was the fool who'd invited Marianne over and while it was sort of terrifying, it was also exciting to imagine being alone with Marianne.

"I suppose…there's not much to see though…" Reluctantly, she got up. Marianne unfolded herself out of her seat, as fluid as a ribbon waving in the breeze. The tour of the house took less than five minutes, after which Marianne indicated the back door. "You want to see the yard?" Marianne nodded, assuming Alice was asking about it. "Well you can't go out in those." She pointed down to Marianne's fashionable, heeled shoes. Marianne followed her gaze curiously. Alice took off her own loafers and exchanged them for her Wellingtons, sitting by the back door. "Take Dyllis', hers will probably fit you better than Iona's or my mum's," Alice said, gesturing. Marianne gave the boots a rueful look for a moment before sliding her shoes off and availing herself of Dyllis' boots.

Alice led Marianne outside, to the pens that stretched across the fields behind their house.

" _Your father is a farmer?_ " Marianne asked.

"My father's a pig farmer," Alice replied, coloring slightly as she looked to the side. She was sure Marianne's parents did something fantastic or that she was fabulously wealthy with an equally elegant and poised family.

" _My father was a tailor_ ," Marianne said, tilting her head slightly, some of her cultivated persona falling away as she watched Alice. She hoped she didn't feel ashamed of her father's profession; Marianne hadn't come from anything big or grand. She'd been a fish out of water in her family and no one had been awfully surprised when she left for Paris, though they were a bit when she actually managed to make something of herself.

"Er…we keep the breeding pigs separate," she said, gesturing. "When it's not mating season." She gestured to the grunting animals bustling around in their pens.

" _Do you have any piglets?_ " Marianne asked, looking around. Those ones were cute at least, though she couldn't say much for the adults. She found some smaller than the rest and approached that pen to have a look at them.

"Those were the newborns from last spring," Alice explained, tramping across the muddy ground over to Marianne. "We'll be selling them soon, probably, except that big one there and the gray spotted one there." She indicated the aforementioned pigs.

Marianne looked across the field to the trees beyond. It was lovely, in a rural, wild sort of way. It felt peaceful, aside from the grunting and occasional squeal of the pigs.

" _You have a pretty home,_ " she said.

"I'm sure it's nothing compared to Paris or Cham-i-nee or wherever else you've been," Alice grumbled. Sensing displeasure in Alice, though for what she couldn't say, Marianne reached out and put a hand on Alice's shoulder. "Did you really come here just for coffee?" Alice asked with a small sigh, wishing she could speak directly to the Frenchwoman. Marianne just stared prettily at her, not understanding a word she said. She squeezed Alice's shoulder and ran her hand down the other woman's arm. Alice sighed again when Marianne's hand left her arm and shook her head, leading Marianne further down the row of pens. At the furthest end, they were far enough away from the house that it was hard to see exactly what was going on there.

"Oh, why did I even bring you here?" Alice lamented, looking up at the sky. Marianne followed her gaze and then looked back down at Alice.

" _So you lured me here with coffee which you didn't actually have. Planning dates isn't your forte, is it?_ " she asked.

"I could be insulting you right now and you'd never know," Alice said needlessly. Marianne reached out and touched one of her pigtails, making Alice jump.

" _Have you ever been kissed before? I bet you have, by some poor besotted boy_ ," Marianne said. " _I wonder what you said to him afterwards_."

"I wish I knew what you wanted," Alice whispered, trying desperately to read Marianne's expression.

" _Isn't this what you want?_ " Marianne asked, stepping closer to Alice. Alice stayed where she was, heart pounding, feeling her face warming up.

"God, stop that," she whispered. "You make me feel like…I don't know! I don't think I've ever felt this way before." Marianne's hand moved from Alice's pigtail to trail her fingers down Alice's cheek. Still, the Englishwoman didn't move away.

" _If we were in Paris, I'd take you to my apartment,_ " Marianne said. " _But alas, this will have to do_." She leaned in, slowly, to give Alice a chance to pull back. When she didn't, Marianne kissed her.

That Alice certainly hadn't felt from her long-ago kiss with Roger. The fire lit in her chest was burning hot and seemed to sweep from the crown of her head to the tip of her toes. She barely had time to marvel that Marianne shared her apparent interest in women at all, let alone in someone like Alice.

Marianne pulled back after a long moment surveyed Alice's face for her reaction. Alice's face was rosy and her eyes hazy; she definitely looked like she needed another good kiss. Marianne, being the lady that she was, obliged. This time Alice was somewhat more certain and pressed back against Marianne's soft lips. By the third kiss, she had her arms wrapped around Marianne's delightfully narrow waist and was leaning up into the kiss.

"Blast," Alice whispered when they drew apart again, her lips tingling from their kisses. "You're not at all like Roger." Marianne smiled, more simply than the showy smile she gave Mrs. Kirkland, and twirled one of Alice's pigtails around her finger.

" _It's a pity you don't live in Glasgow_ ," she said regretfully. Then she'd at least have a couple days with Alice. Alice looked distracted, so Marianne tugged her pigtail lightly. "Aleece," she said. The blonde's attention refocused on Marianne.

"You should kiss me again," Alice told her. Since Marianne couldn't understand her, she could say whatever she wanted.

" _Do you want another kiss?_ " Marianne asked. Alice tilted her face up slightly and Marianne, smiling, took that as a yes. She pressed her lips to Alice's again, and Alice felt slightly faint from the smell of her lavender perfume. Maybe this Frenchie was too good at reading her expressions.

At that moment, there was a distant clanging noise. Alice pulled away and looked past Marianne to the house with a gloomy expression.

"That's mum. We have to go back." She hesitated though, until Marianne turned towards the house, and then she began to lead them back. "You know, I'm pretty sure this sort of thing isn't common in France either, although I've never been," she speculated, looking over at Marianne. Perhaps in Paris it was the norm to have all-female orgies after a night of drunken debauchery; Alice couldn't say for sure, although she highly doubted it.

Marianne just smiled in a carefree way, turning her head to look out over the pigs, back towards the road as they walked. Getting back to the house took much less time than their meandering walk out to the ends of the pens. When they arrived, Alice gestured for Marianne to leave the boots by the door as she happily shed them and put her own shoes back on.

" _I shall have to tell Emma and Angelique that I ended up modeling Wellingtons of my own free will_ ," she remarked with some dismay. Alice, who changed her shoes much faster, watched Marianne, nibbling on the inside of her lower lip. She began to wonder if it had been a bad idea to engage with this woman at all; now she just felt more attached and less able to forget the whole thing. Watching the curve of Marianne's leg as she lifted it and reached back to tug on her shoe, Alice had the undeniable urge to run her hand up that leg and see what it felt like. She still felt hot inside and she wanted more kisses, but Pierre was approaching them now and twittering to Marianne in French.

" _We should go, we need to get back to the train before it gets too late_ ," he said.

" _I suppose we should_ ," Marianne said, casting a side glance over in Alice's direction. She'd been intrigued by the impassioned English girl, but now she felt a deep sense of longing for what could have been, if only they lived closer together. These melancholic feelings would be something she'd linger over with a cigarette and a few glasses of wine for several nights to come and possibly one or two far in the future. Marianne's heart sometimes clung tight to these romantic mishaps, though she kept her grief to herself. " _Ask her if she'll walk us back to the train_ ," she said, looking at Alice rather than Pierre.

"We might as well take the wagon," Alice said when she'd gotten the question. "It's hardly a carriage, but I don't fancy walking back myself in the dark."

Indeed, the Kirkland family wagon was nothing special at all, more meant for transporting supplies with their old spotted stallion than whisking people off to fantastic voyages. Fortunately Mr. Kirkland had arrived home from a brief supply trip while Alice was out with Marianne, so they had the horse and cart again. Alice loaded her two frogs into the cart and was at least amused by their expressions as they tried to find clean, comfortable places to sit. She climbed up into the front to take the reins. Iona and Dyllis stopped by the front door to wave goodbye and Alice's mother told her to be careful.

"I will, mum!" Alice replied testily, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She didn't look forward much to getting married, but at least she wouldn't still be treated like she didn't know when to be _careful_. She hoped.

Their trip back under the twilight sky was much quieter than the walk there had been. Both women seemed contemplative and Pierre was frankly relieved not to have to be the go-between for another argument, though when the silence had gone on long enough, he asked each one separately if there wasn't anything she wanted to say.

" _There's nothing much to say_ ," Marianne said with a dolorous look at Alice's back. " _We will leave and life here will go on as it always has. The sun will rise, the moon will set, Alice will feed her pigs and someday get married to a man down the way. That's life_."

"I don't have anything to say," was all Alice replied. Pierre almost told Marianne he'd warned her this was a bad idea, then kept it to himself. He'd made plenty of his own heart-driven decisions and he knew Mari would be there with a cigarette the next time he came back with a broken heart or a night full of regrets and might-have-beens. That was just the way they were.

The lights were on in the train when they got back to the station, but it was still there, to Pierre's relief. He'd been half-worried they'd come back to find it gone and wind up with an extended stay at the Kirklands'. He hopped down from the cart and held a hand up to help Marianne down.

" _Wait for me by the train_ ," she said, making for the front of the cart as soon as her first foot was on the ground. She leaned her arm against the cart and looked up at Alice, who was staring determinedly forward. " _Aren't you going to say goodbye?_ " she asked.

"Go on, get on your train," Alice said. "Time to go."

" _I'm going to miss you_ ," Marianne said. " _It's not too late to run away with me_."

"You're going to make me miss dinner," Alice told her, still not looking down.

" _Thanks for having me over, even if you lied about the coffee._ " Marianne reached out and put a hand on Alice's knee, making her jump and finally look at the Frenchwoman. It wasn't fair, she wailed inwardly. She wanted _more!_

"Get out of here, will you?" she snapped. "I actually have chores to do!" Marianne just looked up at her a moment, then withdrew her hand and fished something out of her dress pocket, a bit of paper. She handed it up to Alice and walked around the horse to board the train.

" _Goodbye, Aleece_ ," she said, before turning her back to Alice and walking up to the train. She and Pierre vanished into the same door they'd come out of and that, Alice thought, was that.

"Bye," she muttered, stuffing the paper into her shoe for safe-keeping and snapping the reins on her horse. Time to go home.

It wasn't until later that night, Dyllis slumbering in the next bed over, that she was able to read the paper Marianne had given her, by candlelight.

 _Glasgow, S. 13 hr-18 hr 30_

 _1258 Orchid st. Salle 5_

For a moment, Alice couldn't decipher the gibberish collection of numbers and abbreviations on the paper, until it hit her. Marianne was a model on a train travelling north. This—Marianne must have written down her information for the show she was doing! It was in Scotland! Her eyes scanned the thin, loopy script again. She wondered how easily she could persuade her father to let her take pigs up to Glasgow to sell. After all, anything could happen in a big city, right?


End file.
